Bus Destroyes Multiple Cars on Highway

Four people were killed and five injured October 15 2009 in a major traffic accident on the Sun Yat-sen Freeway near Changhua County in central Taiwan.

The accident, which took place at 11:52 a.m., was closely related to a previous accident that had occurred 14 hours earlier.

At roughly 10 p.m. the day before, a tanker full of butane was travelling on the northbound section of the freeway when its driver saw that the small truck in front of him had turned over as a result of a flat tire.

Attempting to avoid the small truck, the driver of the tanker swerved and hit the guard rail on the side of the road. He and the driver of the small truck were both slightly injured.

Fearful that the butane tanker might explode, police officers sealed off the outer two lanes of the freeway. This caused an enormous traffic jam that stretched back for more than 10 kilometers.

The scene still had not been cleared up the following morning, when the driver of a bus belonging to United Bus Co. was travelling along the same freeway en route from Tainan to Taichung.

Though the traffic in front of him had crept to a complete standstill, the bus driver did not slow down but kept going.

The bus slammed first into an armored vehicle directly ahead of it and then continued traveling along the inner and middle lanes. After hitting a total of 13 vehicles the bus finally came to a standstill on the outer lane of the freeway.

It left behind a scene of devastation, wailing, tears and shock. Some cars were completely mangled; others had been turned upside down. Some passengers were hit with such force that they were hurled out of their cars; others were trapped immobile inside their vehicles.

The bus driver said he was traveling between 60 and 70 kilometers per hour at the time of the accident.

“By the time I saw the traffic in front of me, it was too late to step on the brakes, and so it happened.”

The first accident involving the flat tire was cleared up at 4:30 p.m., while the second one was cleared up an hour earlier at 3 p.m. Police officers said the first accident took longer to clear up because butane was involved. (HZW)